re: OT Geniuses, How would you answer this BlackRock interview question?

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Prisoner number one will never join an escape attempt. He knows it will be his death 100% of the time.
Prisoner number two knows that prisoner one will never join the escape attempt. That means prisoner two is not going to join either,

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Prisoner 100 knows that he is under no danger to get shot, and if he tries to escape, prisoner 1 will pay the price.

I mean every prison other than 1 will have the same thoughts.

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Prisoner 100 knows that he is under no danger to get shot, and if he tries to escape, prisoner 1 will pay the price.

I mean every prison other than 1 will have the same thoughts.

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Re-read the proof of the one I posted. It's not the same as the ones previously posted in the thread. If the lowest number prisoner will always be shot, then Prisoner 1 will never join an escape because he'll be killed. If Prisoner 1 will never join an escape, Prisoner 2 will never either because he's sure to be the lowest numbered prisoner. And so on until you get to 100. Prisoner 100 knows that the 99 prisoners before him will never join an escape because of the previous explanation, so he'd have to escape by himself, making him the lowest number. Again, this is assuming all prisoners are rational and understand the logic.

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"I will shoot the first person to attempt an escape" isn't going to work, because if they all attempt an escape at the same time, each prisoner has a chance of only 1/100 to get shot.

The trick is to give every prisoner a number from 1 to 100, and make sure each prisoner knows what their own number is, and to the whole group, announce that if any escape attempt is made, the prisoner with the lowest number gets shot.

Prisoner number one will never join an escape attempt. He knows it will be his death 100% of the time.
Prisoner number two knows that prisoner one will never join the escape attempt. That means prisoner two is not going to join either, because since prisoner one won't join, he'll be the one who gets shot in the event of a mass breakout.
Prisoner three knows this, and comes to the same conclusion. In fact, this logic works all the way up the chain of prisoners until number 100, who, knowing nobody else is going to throw away their life for him, isn't going to make this attempt either.

It's a pretty neat example of proof by induction.

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That is indeed a good answer, but it seems to leave out a key detail - the prisoner with the lowest number who participated in the escape attempt is the one who will be shot.

Let them all murder each other and then shoot the last one standing with your bullet. The probability and age factors aren’t relevant and I think throw in there to throw you off


Edit: reread it, just saythe first to try to escape gets shot. Then no one will try to escape because if they're the first they have a zero probability of survival thus not try to escape. When 100 people won't go if they're first you never get a first and they all stay put

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I’d leave. Not smart enough for that crap.

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Good thing I read the replies before posting. Beat me to it.

offer to buy the field they are in then build a DSLD subdivision. Sell each one of them a house…. they will never escape or recover from that.

It doesn't answer the biggest question, do they know you only have one bullet?

They don't know you only have one round.

Tell them you have deputies in the woods watching them and if they run, they will all be killed.

And if anyone gets away you are going to shoot everyone else.

Honestly?

I’d ask what state we are in to begin with.

Then I’d ask who gave a person of lower education a rifle with 1 bullet.

I’d then have that person shot with the 1 bullet in front of the murderers.

Scene from saving private ryan.

“Who is your leader…” shoots leader